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Old 11-20-2021, 10:09 PM   #1
crounsa810
 
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What was your liberation list?

I feel like this could be interesting.

Obviously liberating songs is something that has been pretty important for this band and the fanbase, but what kind of effect does it have on us over the years?

We all came to the band at varying points in their career, and I think the songs that they weren't playing being such good songs was something that really drew a lot of us in. But, once you hit the point in your fandom that you become aware of the liberation list, I feel like that sets us on a whole different level of fandom. I'm biased of course, but I think the 2008-2011 tours were the peak time for the liberation list. It was a really great mix of: songs that hadn't been played for a really long time but still had a sense of "anything is possible!", a bunch of actual great songs that just weren't being played past their debuts, and it the time since last play had a pretty good variety I think in 2022, the list is too filled with stuff that wasn't very good so we don't miss it as well as being so long ago since it was played that it is very clearly totally unlikely to ever come back.

So what was the liberation list when you first started to care about it? What has come off of it since then that may have lost some of your interest because it has been played more recently? What have you actually seen since then? How did you feel seeing it knowing how rare it is/once was? What have you given up on ever seeing?

Mine was:

People People
Spotlight
Get In Line
Blue Water
Little Thing
Let You Down
#40
For the Beauty of Wynona
Me and Julio
Mother Father
Angel from Montgomery
Busted Stuff
Angel
True Reflections
Kit Kat Jam
Spoon
Long Black Veil
Captain
I Did It
Crazy Easy
Space Between
Good Good Time
Help Myself
Sugar Will
Cry Freedom
Hello Again
Minarets
Christmas Song
Everybody Wake Up
Joyride
Kill the King
American Baby
Steady As We Go
JTR
Digging a Ditch
Last Stop
Big Eyed Fish
Break Free
So Right
Cortez the Killer



Since then, Blue Water has gotten some heavier segue play, Let You Down showed up at Alpine as a solo song, #40 is around, Busted Stuff has been busted out, True Reflections has been played (though probably never again).

What’s interesting is that everything post Angel has been played in the years since. I’ve gotten Space Between, Good Good Time, Help Myself, Everybody Wake Up, JTR, and Sugar Will and don’t remember or think of any of those performances except GGT. I’m still chasing a lot of them and would be happy to see any of them, but they’ve become much less of a “wow! They played that song”

At the same time, my first show saw them play Big Eyed Fish, Last Stop, Digging a Ditch, and Christmas Song, then shortly after I saw Kill the King, American Baby, Break Free, So Right, and Cortez.

I think a lot of the current list deserves to stay on that list, and nothing is really so far back in time that it would be nuts and unprecedented/unexpected to see them play it. I don’t think anything in the top 20 songs ever gets liberated again (MAYBE Angel or a one-off full band #40) and that’s okay. I think Good Good Time sticks out to me a lot because I saw it get liberated and was excited to see it back and hear it but also disappointed that it didn’t sound nearly as interesting as it used to.

Maybe we're all spoiled by the variety they've played in the last decade
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